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A Moscow judge reached beyond the grave Thursday to declare one of the Kremlin’s bitterest enemies guilty of tax evasion.

But even as the straight-faced judge read the verdict against Sergei Magnitsky to a near-empty Moscow courtroom, the 37-year-old whistleblower lay dead in the grave where he was interred after his battered body was found in a cell in Matrosskaya Tishina prison in 2009.

Unlike Europe’s last posthumous trial — of deceased Pope Formosus in 897 A.D. — the defendant’s remains were not put on the stand. Nor was there a séance held to cross-examine him.

But the ghost story-gone-wrong heaped ridicule on Russia’s declining human rights at a time when President Vladimir Putin is trying to buff the country’s image ahead of the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

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“The conviction of the dead Magnitsky is further evidence of the Sovietization of Russia,” German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said on Twitter.

The verdict was meant as a blow against Magnitsky’s former boss, William Browder, who has waged a tireless international campaign to punish Russian officials he holds responsible for the tax lawyer’s death. The U.S. has passed sanctions against a list of suspects, and Canada and European countries have been urged to follow suit.

“This trial is one of the most self-destructive moves (the Russian authorities) could make,” Browder said in a phone interview. “They’ve shot themselves in both feet and the face.”

Browder, head of Hermitage Capital Management — formerly Russia’s biggest investor — was also prosecuted and sentenced to nine years in absentia on charges of evading about $17 million in taxes, a charge he denies. He lives in London, after being deported in 2005.

The battle between Russia and Browder began when he produced a “theft analysis” of Russian corruption that was a hit with the foreign and Russian media. His investigations ran afoul of Putin, and he was thrown out of the country as a “threat to national security.”

When the Russia-based law firm that filed documents for his investment holding companies was raided by police, Browder hired Magnitsky and a team of lawyers to investigate.

Magnitsky uncovered an alleged massive tax fraud scheme that netted a $230 million refund from the Russian government — the largest in its history. In spite of the risk, Magnitsky denounced the alleged plotters in Russian officialdom and ended up behind bars himself on tax fraud charges. But he refused to recant.

Documents obtained by Hermitage showed he filed 450 complaints of torture and intimidation, as well as jailers’ refusal to treat agonizing medical conditions, including pancreatitis. A presidential human rights council probe concluded that he died after a beating by guards with rubber truncheons.

No one was punished for Magnitsky’s death, and Putin denied that he had suffered ill treatment, saying his death was a tragedy, but “nothing that would demand any criminal charges.”

When the U.S. Congress passed the Magnitsky Act last December, Putin denounced it as politically motivated and Russia retaliated by barring Americans from adopting Russian orphans. It also halted the activities of non-profit groups that accept funds from the U.S., an attack aimed at human rights campaigners. And it launched Russia’s first posthumous prosecution against Magnitsky.

The trial was made possible by a law that allowed grieving families to reopen posthumous cases to “protect the honour and dignity” of dead relatives they feel were unfairly judged. But European Union spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said it was illegal because it was not requested by his family to restore his reputation. She condemned the trial as a disturbing sign of Russia’s declining rule of law. Magnitsky’s family snubbed the trial, and his mother called it an “outrage against the memory of my son,” Reuters reported.

“Russia thinks a criminal conviction is the end of the story,” Browder said. “They don’t understand that most people in the West know the facts. It was a conspiracy to cover up a murder.”

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